A&R
men were persuaded to come to the gigs, but it was not
until late 1989 that the band signed a lengthy deal with
the popular indie record companyVinyl
Solution. Apparently the bittersweet "It Cheers
Me Considerably" was the song that persauded the company
that The Bollweevils should be label mates with
Mega City 4 and the Sensless
Things. In March 1990 their first single was
released on the Decoy label, the self produced four track
Talk To Me
EP. It had been recorded in a couple of
days in a local Sheffield studio for just £280 and
the whole process was highly enjoyable. It received
airplay from John Peel on Radio One, received very
good reviews, and sold well. The assumption was that the
band would follow it up with another single in the early
summer.

In many
ways this was the high-point for most of the members of
The Bollweevils - the song-writing was
developing with Sarah taking over the role of lyricist
and Mark was writing some of his most assured tunes to
date. Steve, Dave and Chris gave the music, both live and
in the studio, a full and exciting power and the band's
reputation was growing.

The
future looked bright, and nobody was worried when Vinyl
Solution suddenly declared that they were restructuring
their company. The decision was made to drop many of
their bands so that they could concentrate their
resources on the few they thought were bound for chart
success, and this included The
Bollweevils along with The Edsel Auctioneer
and The Would
Beez. Bigger budgets were discussed and an
album was proposed with Husker Du's Bob Mould
pencilled-in as producer. At this time Ray relinquished
his last responsibilities to the band and Steve ably took
over as manager.